If the shadows of your letters intersect with neighboring letters, that’s perfectly okay! Just remember that all shadow guidelines appear behind the letters.

If that’s the case, think about where the shadow would be if these were real letters and there was a real light source. Some parts of certain letters don’t have a clear corner, like the inside of an “A”. The process is the same regardless of what letter you’re working on: draw 3/16″ lines from the corners, then connect them. The connections that you draw should run parallel to the edges of the original letter. Now, connect the 3/16″ lines that you drew both vertically and horizontally. Your letter should look something like this: Identify the remaining corners of your letter, and draw more 3/16″ lines that are parallel to your diagonal lines. “rolling ruler”) because you can line up the ruler with a diagonal line and easily roll it forward or backward. I find it easiest to draw 3D letters with a parallel glider (a.k.a. Then, draw along the edge of the ruler to make a pencil line that extends 3/16″ (~ 5mm) from the corner of the letter. Line up your ruler with that corner such that the ruler is parallel to the slant lines you drew before. To start drawing your shadows, begin with the lower left corner of your first letter. As such, shadows will appear to the lower right of the letters. To make these letters 3D, I’m assuming that there’s a light source coming from the upper left corner of the page. To get started with your shadow, use a pencil to lightly draw several diagonal, parallel lines over your phrase.

Our goal here is to make these letters look real, like they’re sitting on the page. I chose “EAT MORE KALE” because that’s exactly what I need to do! My garden is overrun with it. For efficiency’s sake, it’s always best to commit to a couple of words versus a full sentence. Remember that it takes some time to draw 3D letters. This is a thicker version of Sans Serif lettering from the Premium Hand Lettering Worksheet Set.

If you’d like to write at a more leisurely pace, try writing your own letters (preferably aided by pencil guidelines), as I’ve done here. If you’re pressed for time, you can type out your phrase in a word processing program, print, and trace the letters. So, start by drawing out a short phrase using thick letters. Letters will only look 3D if you give them a shadow, and in order to cast a shadow, the letters need to be thick. In this article, I’ll teach you how to draw 3D letters using a ruler, a pencil, and a pen. In the course of the tutorial, I ask you to write 3D letters … and yet, no 3D letter tutorial existed on the TPK website! That changes today. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a tutorial called How to Hand Letter Like a Pro.

K 3d drawing